For Jimmy Buffett, life is a beach or rather, a beach party, with tropical sunshine, palm trees, cold libations and lots of music. And everyone is invited to join in the fun. Based on the popularity of Buffett’s concerts, albums and books with legions of Parrot Heads – as his devoted fans are known – this beach party may never end.

Jimmy Buffett has played Martin guitars for decades – it’s already been some party - and C.F. Martin & Co. has acknowledged his loyalty twice: in 1998 with the Martin HD-18JB Jimmy Buffett Signature edition, a classic stage/studio guitar offered in an edition of 424 that sold out immediately, and in 2003 with the Martin 000-JBS Jimmy Buffett Shellback and 000-JBP Jimmy Buffett Pollywog Signature editions, “off-shore” (as in sailboatready) guitars that totaled 168 and 305, respectively (for information on these guitars, see Volumes 4 and 14 of The Sounding Board at www.martinguitar.com).

As Buffett recently pointed out, the one namesake guitar Martin hadn’t yet built for him was a “beach” guitar, a small, sturdy guitar to play at the beach with friends and one that would bring that fun, carefree “beach” spirit wherever it went. So under Jimmy’s guidance – Nazareth, Pennsylvania isn’t exactly a tropical paradise and he is the beach expert – we created one. Martin is pleased to introduce the LX Jimmy Buffett.

The Martin LX Jimmy Buffett guitar features the same “go everywhere” design and materials as the popular and fine sounding LXM “Little Martin:” a modified 0 14-fret shape and short 23” scale, with an HPL (high pressure laminate) body matched to Sitka spruce top bracing, a modified low oval 1 11/16” (at the nut) Stratabond neck, and a Richlite® fingerboard and belly bridge. Like its cousin, the LX Jimmy Buffett is fitted with chrome tuners, a Corian nut and a compensated Tusq saddle.

But it’s the eye-catching appointments that give the Martin LX Jimmy Buffett beach credentials. Koa wood pattern back and sides are reminiscent of Martin’s early Hawaiian guitars and ukuleles. With graphic artwork created by artist/designer and Jimmy Buffett’s friend Dan Rizzie, the top’s handsome dark brown-tolight bronze sunburst silhouettes a tropical island waterfront scene of palm trees, gentle swells, a moored sailboat and a seaplane heading home at sunset. on the headstock, the black HPL headplate highlights the familiar “C. F. Martin” logo, the windswept palm from the two Jimmy Buffett Signature edition guitars and a reproduction of Jimmy Buffett’s signature.

How Jimmy Buffett found the time to provide input on the Martin LX Jimmy Buffett is a minor miracle; the man has been incredibly busy during the last seven years. In 2003, he won a Country Music Award for “It’s Five o’clock Somewhere,” his hit single (#1 on the country chart) collaboration with Alan Jackson.

That same year, he released a two-disc compilation Meet Me in Margaritaville and in 2004 followed it up with License to Chill, which topped the Billboard album chart during its first week of release. His bestselling novel, A Salty Piece of Land, was published in 2004 and he followed it up with yet another novel, Swine Not, in 2008.

He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2006, the same year he released his album Take the Weather with You. In 2007 he was nominated for the Country Music Association’s “Musical event of the Year” Award for the single “Hey, Good Lookin’ Live” with Alan Jackson and George Strait.

He and the Coral Reefer Band also went out on a U.S. tour – with an occasional detour to London or Paris - every summer, as they have since 1972. In recent years these tours have included several well-known ball parks and stadiums, and many of these concerts are documented on CDs and DVDs released by Buffett’s label, Mailboat records. He began broadcasting “Radio Margaritaville” on Sirius radio (now Sirius XM) in 2005 and now includes concert replays and live broadcasts from the Margaritaville Café in Orlando, Florida among its offerings. In 2009, he opened his newest restaurant, Jimmy Buffett’s at the Beachcomber on Waikiki Beach, which includes the new Honolulu Surfing Museum. He has also continued his ongoing charity work with several benefits.

Delivered in a fitted gig bag, each Martin LX Jimmy Buffett guitar bears an interior label with Jimmy Buffett’s facsimile signature. The LX Jimmy Buffett will be limited to no more than 300 special instruments that will begin to become available from authorized C. F. Martin dealers early in 2010.